3 Answers
3

If you only have occasional need of >1GB of swap space, you may consider creating a swap file in addition to the dedicated swap partition, which will avoid having to dig up a live CD/USB and resize partitions.

GParted (available in the repositories) allows you to play with partitions, including resizing them without data loss, but you are strongly suggested to back up all your data before doing so...

RAM is really cheap these days (4GB module around 20$). You might want to consider just buying more RAM if you are making heavy use of your swap partition. It is faster and having more than one module is always good anyway.